Caricom chief: Caribbean must fight to keep 1.5C target alive

Caribbean coun­tries must con­tin­ue to fight to keep the glob­al 1.5-de­gree Cel­sius warm­ing tar­get with­in reach, with Cari­com Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Dr Car­la Bar­nett warn­ing that aban­don­ing the am­bi­tion would leave small is­land and low-ly­ing coastal states in­creas­ing­ly ex­posed to ris­ing sea lev­els and ex­treme weath­er events.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia on the side­lines of COP31 in An­talya, Türkiye, Bar­nett said while the first week of ne­go­ti­a­tions had been marked by en­cour­ag­ing dis­cus­sions and a will­ing­ness among coun­tries to en­gage, the re­gion was look­ing for con­crete ac­tion on emis­sions re­duc­tions and cli­mate fi­nanc­ing.

She said the Caribbean’s vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty made the 1.5-de­gree tar­get a mat­ter of sur­vival, par­tic­u­lar­ly as is­land states con­tin­ued to ex­pe­ri­ence the con­se­quences of cli­mate change de­spite con­tribut­ing rel­a­tive­ly lit­tle to glob­al green­house gas emis­sions.